Importing Video into iMovie & Making DVDs

From Rick Lawson:

Dan,

If you get a chance would you address the following question in one
of your articles ?

Like most folks over 30 I have a large collection of videotapes I
need to digitize. I would like to know the most affordable Mac to
digitize VCR tapes into QuickTime movies and also burn to regular
DVDs.

Thanks,
Rick Lawson

Rick,

I wish I had a simple answer to your seemingly simple
question. I have an
XLR8 ProView USB ($99 from Daystar), and I can report that it works
like a charm. You need a Mac with OS X 10.3.5 or later, USB 2.0,
and either analog audio input or a Griffin iMic adapter.

The problem isn't importing the video - it's knowing
enough to pick the right settings. Which compression scheme do you want
to use, and which settings for that compressor? What resolution? How
will you deal with interlacing if your do the full 640 x 480
resolution? (For the record, Gary Dailey of Daystar Technology suggests
importing using Photo JPEG at this resolution.)

Then there's the next set of questions: How much space
will it take on my hard drive? How long will it take to import into
iMovie? How much space will the iMovie file take? Do I have a big
enough hard drive?

Finally, there's the iDVD set of questions: Is this
going to fit on a single-layer DVD? If not, do I have a dual-layer
SuperDrive? And can I find dual-layer discs at a reasonable price? (Not
often!) And do I have enough space on my hard drive to master the DVD?
And should I choose DVD-R/RW or DVD+R/RW?

On top of all this, there's the question of patience.
On my dual 1 GHz Power Mac G4, video conversion takes a long, long,
long time. It's the kind of project I let run overnight. And on the
MacBook Pro, while it's a lot faster, it's still a long, slow process -
about two hours to import a one-hour video into iMovie.

Importing video is the fast and easy part, as it only
takes a bit over an hour to set things up and save one hour of video to
your hard drive. (BTW, 90 minutes is roughly the point at which you
need to move to a dual-layer DVD.)

I've tried to research the best settings, I've done a
couple of projects, and I'm frankly quite frustrated with the whole
process.

I've set up a community on Google Groups, Mac Video, to discuss issues like this. You
may be able to get more help there.

Dan

Jumping to Gun on Leopard Compatibility with G3
Macs

From Abraham Brody:

Dan,

The problem with starting this now, is that as a frequent
contributor to Apple Discussions and a Level 4 helper there, I field
questions about Leopard every day which basically ask to violate the
Terms of Use of the board there. Until Apple makes such specs public,
relying on developer preview reports alone is going to lead to a lot of
mass confusion, because people may think the official specs have been
released, when they haven't. It is important to note in such articles
where your sources are. I did not see the sources in your article
saying it is the Developer release. Without noting the source, people
might think it is time to buy a new computer, when it might not be.

Sincerely,
Abraham

Abraham,

We do our best to qualify what we say about Leopard -
sources indicate, it appears to be the case, it doesn't look like,
we expect. If people jump from there to believing that we have hard
knowledge of Apple's official system requirements for Leopard, there's
nothing we can do about it short of not preparing people for a future
in which G3 Macs will at some point not have any support in the current
Mac OS.

Based on field reports, what we read on the Web, and
experience with Mac OS X 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4 on G3 Macs, we're
making the case that 10.3 is probably the best version of OS X for
most G3 Macs, that 10.4 tends to work well on these Macs only with lots
of RAM (512 MB+) and a fast hard drive with an 8 MB or larger
buffer. Even if Leopard can be made to run on G3 Macs, whether
supported by Apple or not, we expect it to be a poor user
experience.

Mac OS X 10.5 is going to be very dependent on Core
Image support, which requires a G4 or later. One report we've shared
notes that the Developer Version can run on a Power Mac G4 Cube, although it can't be installed
directly, and that performance was downright poky. That's on a
six-year-old 450-500 MHz machine with AGP 2x graphics.

Granted, there may be extra debugging code in there
that slows things down, but if it's poky on a G4/450, it's going to be
downright excruciating on a 300 MHz G3 with PCI graphics.

Dan

Intel Macs Support 802.11a WiFi

From Ed Hurtley:

I know it's PR, but the comment about the QuickerTek Wireless adapter has
some technical incorrectness. It states "Most notable is the addition
of 802.11a wireless - a feature not even available from Apple." All of
Apple's Intel wireless cards can do 802.11a. From the first MacBook Pro
to the Mac Pro, to the current 802.11n equipped Macs. All have the
ability to connect to an 802.11a 5 GHz network. (I use my first
rev this way on an 802.11n AirPort Extreme set to "802.11n,
a-compatible mode") An editorial comment might be appropriate. (I am
also writing to QuickerTek to complain about their 'false
advertising'.)

Ed Hurtley

Ed,

Thanks for writing - and for contacting QuickerTek. We
don't have the resources to verify claims made in PR pieces, which is
part of the reason we clearly mark them as PR in our news roundups.

Thanks for sharing this info, as I'm sure most Mac
users are not aware that the Intel Macs support 802.11a, a protocol
Apple never supported in the past.

Dan

Interference Robustness

The normal 802.11 behavior is to drop down to lower bit rates when
faced with high error or retry rates (it's how you get 11 Mbit/s in a
small cell around an 802.11b AP but can still get 1 Mbit/s quite a
bit farther from it). This results in packets (the same size packets in
bytes, mind you) taking longer to transmit because of the lower
transmission rate. Because there's a longer window of transmission,
there's more opportunity for a periodic interference source (like a
microwave oven) to trample your packet. My understanding of the
interference robustness feature is that it makes the radio less willing
to negotiate down to lower bit rates, keeping the transmission window
narrower for individual packets due to the higher bit rate, and
increasing the chance of getting those packets through the periodic
interference.

I agree that you wouldn't normally want this left on - the normal
behavior of stepping down the bit rate is actually the proper and
helpful response in most situations. But if you're having troubles and
it helps . . . well, then it helps. :)

BTW, it's not Apple-proprietary. It was introduced, I believe, by
Broadcom (that's at least where I first saw it, anyway), and it should
work with other vendors' APs as well. The feature is present on both
Broadcom- and Atheros-equipped Macs.

[I tried to find some corroboration of this in Google, but like the
original article notes, there's not much out there. I'm sure of the
802.11 normal behavior part; I'm pretty sure (but not absolutely
positive, because I don't remember where I read it) about the
robustness feature.]

- Brian

Brian,

Thanks for writing. "Interference robustness" isn't
something most of us have ever heard of, and Arbi Karamians tries to
explain it for the average user, and he's right in pointing out that it
has been widely discussed but rarely or poorly explained.
Unfortunately, his explanation isn't especially clear, but at least
it's a step in that direction.

Here's my layman's take: Wireless networking
throughput can suffer from interference, whether it's another wireless
router on the same frequency, one on an adjacent frequency, or certain
classes of wireless phones. Way to deal with interference include
changing the channel and dropping to a slower protocol. Apple's
solution (whether unique to Apple or not) of using smaller packets
sounds far from optimal, but if there's not a clear channel to choose
from, transmission at any speed is going to experience interference, so
sending smaller packets than can be resent more quickly may result in
better throughput if the interference is intermittent.

In short, it's making the best of a very bad
situation, and the cost in throughput is high, but if regular WiFi
settings aren't working, it may make it possible to maintain a WiFi
connection that would otherwise be useless.

Maybe this article will prompt someone who really
understands interference robustness to write a far more detailed and
accessible article.

Dan

USB Options for a Beige Power Mac G3

From Robert M. Krautheim:

Thanks Dan,

I have to admit to being a bit dumb on matters like these. I just
remember you first saying that it had to be:

"chipsets that support OHCI (Open Host Controller
Interface) tend to work, while OTPI cards tend not to work (although
Keyspan seems to be an exception)."

...and I couldn't find if it was OHCI online (or from the
description). I guess for $20, it's worth a shot, and it says it can be
returned to a Target store if it doesn't.

I guess I'm a bit trepidation. as it is USB 2.0, but that shouldn't
matter too much as it is backwards compatible. I seen some other items
like this online (eBay/Amazon z-shops) for a bit cheaper, but this one
seems like it has less frills.